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Thursday, June 2, 2016

Chicken and Rice #thebookclubcookbookcc

Welcome to a new month of The Book Club Cookbook Cooking Crew! For the month of May (yes, I'm late-- what else is new!), Wendy over at A Day in the Life on the Farm hosted Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Each month, a new blogger hosts and chooses a book for us to make recipes inspired by the book. Please see her invitation post for more information.

I can't tell you too much about the book that we read this month because even though I got a head start in reading, I was only able to read about 50 pages. I've had this book on my bookshelf for over 10 years and I still have yet to complete it which I really want to do.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is from Columbia, so I decided to make a Latin dish. I don't know how authentic chicken and rice is to Columbia, but I chose to make this dish anyway (partly because this recipe I've been wanting to make for awhile). This chicken and rice recipe has saffron and olives, so it might also be more Spanish than Latin American influenced, not too sure. This recipe is from Martha Stewart's One Pot cookbook, which is a cookbook that I've been cooking a lot from recently!

I couldn't find Valencia rice, as recommended, so I substituted arborio rice. I noticed that the rice came out much more creamy than I expected, somewhat like a risotto, which I actually really loved. I'm also not a fan of olives, so I wasn't sure if I'd like them in this recipe or if the flavor of the olives would be too overpowering for me; the olive flavor was very subtle and I actually did eat some of the olives. If you love olives, go for it but next time I may reduce the amount of olives just a little bit.

This recipe cooks most of the time in the oven, which is nice because I can put everything away and clean up the kitchen while it's cooking. One of the things I dislike is having to do a bunch of dishes after I eat. Plus I don't like to wait to eat when my food is finished cooking, so I don't usually wash dishes before I eat if the meal is ready. Yes, bad habits, I know!

Also, please check out the wonderful bloggers below who are participating in The Book Club Cook Book Cooking Crew and see what they have created this month. You can also follow this project on social media with the hashtag #thebookclubcookbookCC. We'll be posting all of our creations to our Pinterest board. Here's the team, in alphabetical order with links to their homepages.

Because May is over, I'm giving you June's giveaway information! For June, Sarah at Things I Make (for Dinner), this month's host, is giving away two copies of the book.* Enter to win a copy of the cookbook so you can join us in future months, if you wish!

TWO of our lucky readers - US and Canada only! - can enter to win a copy of The Book Club Cookbook, Revised Edition: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp, courtesy of Tarcher-Penguin. Giveaway runs from June 1st till June 30th at 6 o'clock PM, Pacific time. Please see terms and conditions in the rafflecopter widget below. Many thanks to Tarcher Books. You may find Tarcher: on the web, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Pinterest.

*Disclosure: Sarah received a complimentary copy of The Book Club Cookbook, Revised Edition: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp as an opportunity to give a copy away. Opinions are our own. We received no further compensation for our posts.

Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large Dutch oven or braiser, heat oil over medium-high. Add chicken, skin-side down; cook until browned, 6-7 minutes. Flip and cook 2 minutes more; transfer to a plate.